Killzone 2 multiplayer beta will happen

Guerrilla Games told Eurogamer today that a Killzone 2 multiplayer beta is "definitely" in its plans.

The Dutch developer behind Sony's upcoming FPS showed off the online multiplayer side of the game at E3 and admitted it "wants feedback from the fan-base" later in the year - promising more details on when and how in the near future.

The developer also said that co-operative play was "part of our plans" for downloadable content although declined to share more details.

We were told to expect hands-on with the multiplayer - and more details, which we'll infer may include beta details - at Leipzig's Games Convention in late August.

Killzone 2 multiplayer will ship with eight maps, the developer said, and players will be invited to rank up as they play in a similar fashion to current FPS heavyweight Call of Duty 4. Support is for between two and 32 players, although there are no hard player limits, with a lot of scope for customisation.

There will also be six player classes to choose from - assault, scout, medic, engineer, tactician and saboteur - and each will come with various specialist skills. For example, the tactician can deploy mobile spawn points and call in air-strikes from a chopper, while the medic can revive players with a medi-gun and toss health packs to comrades.

This sort of team-play behaviour will contribute to ranking up, as will kills and completing objectives, and there are also a range of "ribbons" to earn by doing a certain number of headshots and so on.

What's more, players will be able to customise their approach further by combining two classes (known as "badges" in the game's lingo) to combine certain abilities.

For game-types you've got team deathmatch, capture-and-hold, search-and-destroy, assassination and "body count", and it will be possible to customise party playlists so that you work through a sequence of different game-types during one session - without leaving the level.

There's masses more to report - including the community aspects and the minute details behind all of the above - but we'll save it for our extended preview either later in the week or once we get home from E3.

Look out for more on Sony's top PS3 games - including a LittleBigPlanet showing that left us giddy as school-children - very soon.